Considering Options

Depending on one's choice of religion, death's sting might not be as deadly as claimed. Not when there is promise of an afterlife. Of course whether one abodes in heaven or hell might be a concern. Resurrection as a choice relating to particular religion; well, all things considered who might wish to return as a cow, a chicken, a pig, to be transformed into some manner of edible on someone's dinner plate. Or, conversely, another person whose life-performance is nothing whatever to relish; say a mass murderer, a child predator, a war criminal, a bloody tyrant.

In Christianity, heaven is a concept that exists to entice the faithful to good behaviour during their lifetimes. After life? Well, it's said that heaven can be construed as a 'state of being', or a place, but since no one can have certain knowledge of which it is, how would that play out? An anxiously hovering spirit, never seen, but in constant anguish if they're in the state of being of hell, or perhaps lounging on a cloud, up in heaven, watching entertaining scenes below.

Mormonism persuades its faithful to believe they will, at death, be reunited in a long, unbroken line with their families and their ancestors for eternity. Apostates excepted. One tries to imagine those long, interminable, bitter family arguments from which there is never, ever any escape. Everywhere one turns, there is yet another family member waiting for an argument over borrowed finances, or critical comments they've taken umbrage with.

Ah, now, Zoroastrianism also promises the Catholic version of heaven and hell. If one has been very bad as a result of forgivable human weakness contributing to ill deeds and sins, confession will help, or mercy offered to others, a kind of indulgence that will transfer the soul from the fires of hell to the plush accommodations to be found in heaven. All one needs do is be intrinsically good; if there's any doubt you can end up mired in an intermediate state; neither heaven nor hell. Which sounds rather like life itself.

As for Judaism, "This world is compared to an ante-chamber that leads to the World-to-Come", a phrase uttered by the venerable Rabbi Ya'akov. There may be a 'next life', an afterlife whatever that might be to strain the hopeful imagination. It appears also that the souls of the departed may stand a fairly good chance of being resurrected after the coming of the Messiah; yet to appear, anticipated over the ages, but extremely shy of presentation.

Hinduism offers another kind of panacea to death; reincarnation; a series of new lives. The catch? Each one of those new lives offers the opportunity to do penance and correct sins committed during each of the previous lifetimes. This protocol could quite conceivably leave a whole lot of sinners extremely busy for an eternity of atonement. A thief returns as a victim, for example, and the never-ending scenario goes into endless repetition mode.

Oh yes, and there's also Scientology which recognizes the soul (mind?) as life's most vital aspect. In this religion there's no fuss, no muss, no restrictions on behaviour other than to sign that one-billion-year contract with the church leadership. Behave as you will, ethics have no bearing on how the soul presents on reincarnation. Commitment to authority in the current sense is critical; sounds like a tyranny of faith.

Buddhism offers reincarnation as well, but escaping all human desire is required to bring the soul beyond the birth-death-rebirth cycle to achieve the most elite goal of nirvana. And that is? Liberation. Experiencing nothing but a great deep vacuum of emotions. Nirvana permits the successful aspirant to be entirely extinguished. To become a vapour of nothing whatever. A free spirit that will no longer exist.

In Shintoism, the religion of Japan, birth is celebrated, but death is left to others to dispose of; the dead are not to be touched, though that condition creates freedom for the spirit. And in that freedom the spirit joins with the divine. In that absorption into the divine, what was once a human becomes the essence of a spirit which in joining the divine becomes ... well, the divine.

Islam believes that a waiting game exists with the dead patiently waiting where they are buried, for the advent of final judgement. The fires of hell await those who deserve the torture they will endure there, while paradise awaits those who have distinguished themselves by good deeds and fealty to the spirit of Islam during their lifetime. Infidels need not apply.